The Song of Fire
by Smudgster
Summary: It has been three years since Karin has seen Toshiro and a lot has changed since then. When the young captain comes to the world of the living on a mission he is in for a surprise. Sent to find the culprit behind the exercising of hollows that the soulreaper assigned had no idea about, things quickly get interesting when the spirit energy of a different hollow is found at the scene
1. Song of fire and ice

'Captain, OH CAPTAIN!' the shouting got louder as my stupid lieutenant drew up to my office.

'What is it Rongiku?' I sighed.

She looked so exited that I thought she must've been with one of her many boyfriends, but then she surprised me by asking, 'haven't you got the message from the head captain? We're going to the world of the living!'

'Oh that, I got the message this morning' I said still confused as to why she was so excited. We had gone to the world of the living plenty of times before and this was just another mission (to find the person who had been killing all the hollows in the world of the living while Ichigo and Rukia where in the soul society), granted we had not been there in a year but why would we have gone? 'Rongiku why are you so excitable today? It's just a mission, it's not as if it's a holiday.'

'Captain how can you say that?! Aren't you even a bit excited that you'll be able to see her again?' She said shocked.

'Who?' I looked at her hoping above all hope that she was not talking about the same person I thought she was talking about.

'Captain don't tell me that you have forgotten about her already, Karin of course!' My stomach dropped. Karin Kurosaki. Ichigo Kurosaki's little sister, and a girl in the world of the living that I had grown relatively close to. A girl that had never listened when I told her I was not in grade school. A girl who always insisted on calling me midget. A girl who had managed to get me to play soccer with her and then revealed that she could see souls, hollows and soul reapers when she got attacked by a hollow and in the efforts to save her friends got the hollow angry at her. There was one problem with us being friends; we had not seen each other in three years. Of course Rongiku Matsumoto had to bring Karin up.

Lost in memories I had not realized that my subordinate was talking to me.

'Captain? Are you all right' she said breaking me out of my thoughts.

'What? Yes of course I am fine' I snapped 'you were saying?'

'I was saying that we should meet up with her while we're there. Are you sure you're alright captain?' She said looking at me with uncertainty.

'No we should not meet up with her, we are on a mission and we can't afford any distractions, also shouldn't you be packing, knowing you, you'll need to pack 5 whole suitcases. We will be leaving in two hours so you should get started'

'Oh yeah! I forgot! See you at the senkaimon gate.' And with that she bustled out. Making sure that my door was shut and that Rongiku was actually gone I pulled the photo I had of Karin out of the secret draw in my desk. The picture was 3 years out of date but I smiled at the picture granny had taken of us. I was trying to pull my self out of the picture but Karin had me by the shoulders and was making sure I did not get away. She was laughing so hard at my failed attempts to get out of the picture and/or my geguy. I understood what she meant by the fact that I looked like a grade schooler and a midget, but in the three years since I left, I had grown a lot.

I put the photo away thinking to myself, _how much have you grown Karin?_

As we stepped through the senkaimon and onto the bank of the river, I looked out at the sky. I was still the same sky that Karin and I had looked out at all those years ago. I felt that the sky was welcoming me back and though many things may have changed over the years it was telling me that it never would. My problem was that I really had no idea how much everything else had changed.

Karin POV:

Karin was taking long swigs from her water bottle because she had just come off to sub in the soccer game she was playing.

'Karin can I talk to you for a sec?' She turned to see one of her mid fielders named Sangushi talking to her.

He was tall, muscular, popular at school and he always annoyed the hell out of her. Sangushi had been trying to ask her out for the past year but she said no every time. Lots of boys had been trying to date her, but she hated most of them and the others she liked just as friends.

'No, sorry, not today Sangushi' with that she walked up to the sideline to start packing away her stuff. Just as she finished the whistle blew for full time.

Saying goodbye to her team she walked the three kms (I'm Australian) in the direction away from her home and sat in the spot that she and Toshiro had once shared, looking up at the sky thinking about where the white haired midget might be. 'Your probably off doing some important captain business, but still... Why didn't you come back?' All of a sudden she was angry, very angry. 'You could have at least called or what ever it is you do in the soul society! Did you forget about me so easily?!' She was lucky she was alone because her raised spirit energy had attracted 3 small sized hollows. She took them down easily, all the while yelling at Toshiro for making her so angry.

When she had killed them she still felt the anger raging inside her. It was like she was boiling water in her stomach and the more bubbles that burst the angrier she became. She walked back to the fence and lent against it. Eventually she calmed down enough to think about going home and getting the homework done that she had been putting off. As she walked away she looked back at the sky muttering 'where are you midget?'

'Hayar!'As she walked in the door her father launched himself at her. He had taken to doing this to Karin when Ichigo was not there, which turned out to be quite often these days.

She dodged the attack and retaliated by literally walking on him as she went to the kitchen just saying, 'shove off dad, I'm hungry.' She greeted her twin Yuzu and went strait to the fridge and grabbed a rice ball. Then she went upstairs and willed her self to do the homework she had been procrastinating on for the last few days.

When it was done she sat on her bed and started singing one of her favorite songs.

'Hey there Delilah,

What's it like in New York City,

I'm a thousand miles away,

But tonight you look so pretty, yes you do,

Time Square can't shine as bright as you,

I swear it's true,

Hey there Delilah,

Don't you worry about the distance,

I'll be there when you get lonely,

Give my song another listen,

Close your eyes,

Listen to my voice,

That's my disguise,

I'm by your side,

Oh it's what you do to me,

Oh it's what you do to me,

What you do to me,

What you do to me'

HI GUYS

This is the first Fan-fiction that i have ever written, so tell me what you think. i love it when i get comments and ideas from you guys. I am writing a Naruto Fan-fic on wattpad so chapters on here may be a bit slow...

anyway... Hope you enjoyed!


	2. Song of memories

Toshiro POV:

I sat on her roof listening to her sing until she got called to dinner and even then I sat thinking about the first song she had sung.

The lines 'don't you worry about the distance, I'll be there when you get lonely' had caught my attention, she had sung the song in such a sad voice and with such feeling that I had just wanted to go down to her and comfort her. I hated the way she made me feel like this.

As I jumped from house to house I decided that I would have to talk to her eventually, so it was best that we talked sooner rather then later. I would tell her that we could not be friends and that I was the captain of squad 10 and I should not be seen playing soccer with or coming into contact with a human girl in any way because it could put her in danger. I was sure she would not go down that easily but it was a start.

The next day I was walking to where I used to always sit on the fence next to a deserted path when I saw someone was sitting in my spot.

The short dark hair and cap confirmed that it was Karin Kurosaki.

 _What the hell is she doing here?! Her house is the other way!_ I thought to myself. She was looking out at the sky like we did when we were younger, just as I turned to go I saw her get up and say quietly 'where the hell are you midget?' The she grabbed her bag a walked off on the path to her house.

I had half the mind to run after her, but then I saw that she had left something behind, it was the picture of us 3 years ago. I looked at the younger her laughing and frowned, some one had scribbled and tried to cut Karin out of the picture and by the look of it, Karin had been the one who did it, because the words 'happy times' on the bottom of the page had been crossed out and replace with her untidy scrawl of 'stupid times'. I knew that I should leave it but I felt like she had left it for me. I needed to talk to granny.

Three years ago when I came to the world of the living for the second time after meeting her, we had gone to see the old woman called granny. I had known her before I came to the world of the living, but Karin was meeting her for the first time. They had immediately hit it off, and I had been glad that I had introduced them, because when I was about to leave Karin had asked granny if she could keep coming back even though I would not be there all the time. She had not had any idea how right she was.

I got to her house and knocked on the old wooden door. A smiling old lady opened it yelling 'Toshiro, your back! Let me look at you!' She grabbed my face and pushed it around, looking at me from every angle, saying all the time, 'oh you've grown so much and look at how handsome you have become!' She ushered me in and told me to sit down while she went to make tea. I sat in the room that was unusually bare. Granny had never much liked decorations. The only decorations I could see where a couple of pictures and, to my surprise, one of the pictures was the picture of Karin and I.

She came back with a tray of tea and a bowl, which turned out to be filled with candied beans. 'Now, Help yourself Toshiro. You look thin, I thought that they would feed there captains better.'

'I choose what I eat, granny. No one else.' I said indignantly. I looked at the tasty treat and saw Karin's face saying 'you like candied beans? Your like an old man, Toshiro.' The memory was of last time I was here and she was with me. 'Granny, I need to talk to you about Karin.' I said firmly.

'Well, I should hope so since you have not seen her in 3 years.' She said in a disapproving voice, sitting down on the futon in front of me.

'How did you know?' I asked, confused.

'She has been coming back here every week just to see if I had seen you.' Granny said matter of fact.

'What!'

'Yes. That girl can be quite persistent when she wants to be.'

'She has been coming every week?'

'Well, she used to, anyway.' Granny said sadly.

'What do you mean, "she used to"?' I asked determined not to slip from the conversation.

'She has been coming back less and less. She's probably off chasing hollows or whatever young girls do these days.'

'Chasing hollows!?' I shouted in surprise. Why would she be doing that? She wasn't even a soul reaper! A picture of Karin kicking her soccer ball at the hollow we had fought three years ago swam into my head.

'Yes. She has been doing it since her brother went to the soul society. The soul reaper you sent was appalling, so what could she do. She's rather like you in that aspect.' She said as if she was trying not to laugh, as if she knew she should have been disapproving of a young woman fighting monsters, but she didn't seem to be able to be.

'How on earth is that girl like me?!' I said in disbelief. No she couldn't be the one we were looking for, she just, couldn't.

'Oh Toshiro, she is so like you, it's almost frightening. She won't let anyone around her get hurt even if it means putting herself in the crossfire.' And with that last, rather disturbing, piece of information, she changed the subject. 'So, my boy, what's going on in the soul society?'

Karin POV

School was the usual, boring affair for Karin the next day. She fell asleep in math because she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, of cause the fact that math was dead boring did not help at all. The one thing that kept her going was the fact that she was going to be on the field that afternoon.

When she got to the field she saw that her whole team was there already. 'What's this? She asked her teammates.

It was Anna who answered. The American had come to Japan 1 year ago and she had become a great friend of Karin's. 'Well, we know it is your birthday tomorrow, and we decided that because we won't see you tomorrow, then we will skip training today and party hard!'

'What! She exclaimed. She was still stuck on the 'not training' part. 'Oh, Sorry, but... I can't.' She said apologetically.

'Oh come on!' They all groaned. 'We've been organizing this for weeks, and the you just go and say "sorry but I can't"!' Anna said disbelievingly. Her eyes swelled to big puppy dog eyes, 'please, just tonight? We won't stay out that late.' She pleaded.

Karin could not say no to that face, she caved. 'Fine, but I have to be home by 7' she agreed reluctantly.

The party was very boring for Karin, parties just weren't her thing but her friends were having fun so she stayed for a while. Karin was not a "good girl" by any stretch of the imagination but she would much rather be at home writing songs Inevitably Sangushi dragged Karin onto the dance floor that Anna had made out of her living room. As much as Karin tried, she just could not get away. 'Come on Karin, just a little dance. You'll feel better about us.' Sangushi was hitting on her hard and she was getting very uncomfortable.

Just when she thought she would have to punch him to get away, Anna came to Karin's rescue. 'Sorry I didn't get there sooner, but I didn't see, until that boy pointed it out. You looked like you were going to slap the guy.' Anna explained once they were off the dance floor.

'I was going to PUNCH him. There is a difference. Wait which boy?' Karin replied looking at her watch, it was 7:30. 'Oh crap! I've got to run! Thanks for the party and everything.' She through over her shoulder as she ran for the door, completely forgetting about the boy.

She didn't think about the boy on her way home as the time had driven him completely from her mind. Halfway home she felt a slightly familiar spiritual pressure following her. She looked behind her but as soon as she turned, it disappeared.

 _I know that spiritual pressure, but where from!_

Suddenly it came to her, it was Toshiro's spirit energy that she had sensed. She immediately pushed the idea away. He wouldn't be following her.

 _He's in the soul society anyway._

After a while, when the pressure didn't come back, she looked at her watch again. It was now 7:43, and as much as she wanted to go investigate, she had to get home or she would be in even worse trouble.

As she walked off, she looked back at where she had sensed it, she had been sure it was Toshiro's spiritual pressure. 'Don't be stupid,' she told herself, 'why'd he be here?'

HI Guys

I'm back! hope you like the new chapter and i really do apologize for the long wait!


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